From Care Ethics to Care Politics. Toward a Political Notion of Care

(1)

Department of Philosophy (IFF)

From Care Ethics to Care Politics

Toward a Political Notion of Care

—

Tim Dassler

Master Thesis in Philosophy FIL-3900 – May 2016 Supervisor: Annamari Vitikainen

(2)

ABSTRACT

This thesis is an investigation into the notion of care and what role it can play for developing a concept of the political based on care. It is a systematic attempt to lay a foundation and sketch out the

premises and ramifications in which a full-fledged philosophical theory of a politics of care may be grounded. In chapter I, the thesis traces the etymological and historical development of the notion of care showing that care has always been an important ingredient to philosophical thought, although not entering mainstream philosophical theories. Furthermore, in chapter I, it is argued that care is an essential ingredient to human life. Chapter II investigates the notion of care in relation to ethics and how a comprehensive ethics of care may look. It discusses the roots of care ethics, its theoretical and ontological foundations as well as guiding principles that are important in order to develop care into an ethical theory on par with utilitarianism, deontology and justice theory. Chapter III discusses care with regard to the political and how it may contribute to a contemporary comprehension of politics as politics of care, preventing harmful relations between agents, and furthering human flourishing. A tentative concept of care politics is sketched out toward the end of chapter III. Several theoretical and practical challenges to care politics are discussed over the course of chapter III. Throughout the thesis, the notion of care is discussed and applied to practical examples both from the private and public domain such as the European refugee crisis, global warming and general as well as specific relations between agents. The thesis concludes that in order for care to play a significant role both as a theory, that is, as a political concept, as well as a practically guiding political notion, the fundamental

categories and ontology on which our current concepts of the political are based have to be changed.

Key words: care, ethics of care, care ethics, politics of care, care politics, history of care, ontology of care, myth of cura, existential care, the care of the common, expanded mature care, refugee crisis

(3)

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Annamari Vitikainen. Her rigorous reading of the philosophical arguments in this thesis encouraged precision in my philosophical argumentation.

Without her invaluable feedback and a map that kept me on track when mind and ambition wanted to stray from the path toward completion, I would not have been able to finish this thesis. I would also like to thank my co-supervisor Tor Ivar Hanstad for providing needed support and helpful suggestions on literature that encouraged me to widen my philosophical approach.

I am truly grateful to the department of philosophy at the University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway for providing encouragement, conditions as well as second and third chances for

completing this thesis.

It is hard to measure the important contributions of Prof. Beatrix Himmelmann and Melina Duarte to whom I am truly thankful for their thoughtful and inspiring discussions and encouragements.

I am also in debt to my friends Viggo Rossvær and Eirik Mathiesen who are confirming examples I could look to when needing orientation or doubting the meaningfulness of the business of philosophy.

Who would inspire me to look up from the map, to dare to leave the beaten track and to see all the possibilities that are out there to explore. Possibilities no map can capture.

I am truly thankful to my former colleague Ronja Trolie who provided me with essential insight into the Norwegian legal system concerning refugees and for showing me, the huge difference a compassionate and caring citizen can make in the lives of others.

I would also like to thank my parents Harald and Sandra Dassler for instilling in me the curiosity necessary for all philosophical wondering and encouraging me to follow my interests and curiosity.

It is impossible to name all the people who either directly or indirectly contributed to this thesis. If you do not find your name here, be assured that I am sincerely thankful for the support, guidance and challenges you gave me.

Finally, I am deeply thankful to my partner Johanna Laue for her patient ear listening to my thoughts and providing feedback when necessary and for putting up with the whole spectrum of thesis related mood swings during the writing process.

(6)

iv

Dedicated to Hedwig Taubert, a true woman of the post WWII Germany who with her ever present pragmatism gave life a beautifully existential twist in the most confirming way known to me.

Illustration on front page: Vertical Infinity. Mount Cook, New Zealand. By Johanna Laue

(7)

1

INTRODUCTION - TOWARD A POLITICAL NOTION OF CARE

In this thesis, I will investigate whether or not care can function as a political concept. That is, a concept that can be applied to understanding as well as guide political actions. In the discussion, I will focus especially on care as a concept for guiding private and interpersonal actions, that are typically discussed within the domain of ethics, as well as relations and actions between the

individual, groups, institutions, the state and abstract actors such as corporations, which are typically understood within a framework of the political. Some of the most pressing problems of our time such as poverty, hunger, war, the effects of climate change or the current (as of 2015/16) refugee crisis are created by the relations of systems that are in their own turn created by human beings and that should be able to be solved by human beings through political means. Thus, the question I will ask is what role care can play in contributing to the understanding and solving of the most pressing political problems of our time.

I am not the first to commence such an investigation and I am in debt to thinkers such as Virginia Held (2006), Joan Tronto (1993), Elisabeth Conradi (2001) and David Engsters (2007) who sought to rethink care on a conceptual level in order to make it fit for politics. Although a discussion of all of them would be beyond the scope of this thesis, I find it important to point out that each of them has contributed significantly to the field and that they have laid a solid foundation for broadening the notion of care toward the political. However, this thesis attempts a partly different approach by investigating the historical, etymological and ethical dimensions of care in order to rethink the political entirely from a perspective of care.

The notion of care has been revived for and reintroduced into mainstream philosophy by Care Ethics over the last three decades as a new and different way of thinking on, about and within moral philosophy and our human (inter)actions. The “voice of care”¹ has been claimed to be equally important as the “justice perspective” of liberal human rights theory,² and deontological, utilitarian or value based approaches within ethics. In chapter I, I will discuss the history and etymology of the notion of care and argue that care has always been understood as integral to living a human life.

From there the discussion of care ethics, its origins (Gilligan) and development into a full-fledged ethical theory (Pettersen) will lead to an account of care ethics that can already be applied to many kinds of political decisions. In chapter III, this thesis attempts to rethink the political from a

1 This refers to Carol Gilligan's book In a Different Voice, 1982.

2 Sander-Staudt, 2015.

(8)

2

perspective of care (Sluga) asking whether care ethics can successfully be expanded to encompass politics and whether it will be possible to develop a meaningful notion of care politics. It is an attempt to rethink what has been called the “classical”³ concept of the political where politics is understood as the sovereign rule over a territory and its people, or government of the state as we have learned to say, with politics understood as a collective search for a way to best live together, that is, a common good.

The ethics of care was meant to be a new type of ethics. One that would shift the focus from what many of its thinkers, such as Gilligan and Pettersen, perceived to be male dominated, universalist, top-down, justice and deontological theories toward a more relational ethics based on particulars and the situatedness of the moral agent within empirical as well as human, societal and political structures. Nonetheless, developing care ethics into a concept for the political presents us with several problems the most challenging being that we have to change the ontology and very

categories in which our classic understanding of the ethical and political are grounded. This makes it difficult to think of care from within the above mentioned traditions that tend to reduce the richness of care to a mere norm, principle of justice, value or good. In this way creating the possibility for care to be incorporated into and being able to be critiqued on the grounds of traditional moral and ethical theories.

This thesis will thus aim at rethinking care not only on a conceptual, but also on an existential level, always having in mind its significance in politics. This will lead to the understanding of politics as a search for the common good (Sluga) which will be discussed in chapter III. For Sluga, care structures and especially the care of the common, an understanding of politics that has its roots in pre-Socratic philosophy and the thinker Protagoras, are essential to understanding politics as a common human undertaking, the concerted search for the common good.

The main argument of this thesis will be that care politics is difficult if not impossible to comprehend under traditional philosophical theories. It requires a completely different way of thinking about ethics and politics. Under current conditions where the classical understanding of politics is that of the government of the state, i.e., the rule of the polis, care will always turn out to be paternalistic and maybe even abusive. The same is true for care ethics. As long as care is seen as part of an ethical undertaking supposed to provide norms, values or precise rules⁴ to guide our actions it is prone to

3 Sluga, 2014, p. 5.

4 Tove Pettersen who I will discuss in chapter II, is aware of some sceptics, such as Noddings (1984) negative position toward the notion of care being able to provide moral principles. Anyhow, she explicitly states that she does not see care ethics as providing rigid and inflexible rules, but as a “guide” See Pettersen, 2008, p. 43

& p. 48 note 14.

(9)

3

betray its unique approach toward ethical dilemmas and how we may solve them. My approach will be more moderate, attempting to show that when comprehending the notion of care from a relational ontology it can serve as a compass to orientate ourselves in the topography of the moral and political decisions now and in the future.

Thus, care can play a major role in understanding politics through a new vocabulary, as the care of the common. A search for a common good. Not a universal, untimely, and absolute common good, but a temporary and changeable common good. We may then be able to characterize this search as a caring activity, the care by the community for the community. A political community that makes it possible to include on a conceptual and practical level all human and other beings that we are able to care for.

Why am I departing on such an adventurous journey? Why should we care about care at all and can the notion of care really contribute to and broaden our understanding of the political let alone provide us with a comprehensive concept of the political? In the end, care seems to be an

indefinitely relative notion that withdraws itself from precise definition.⁵ How could such a malleable concept be the whetstone for discussions on how we should live and act, how we should organize how to socially and politically live together in the best way in this, in our human, world? More simply put; would the world really be a “better” and more just place if everybody cared? There are

important theoretical and practical reasons why I find such a project worthwhile. As human beings, we cannot do without care. We need care to flourish and develop into what and who we are both on an individual and a societal level. However, care does not only pertain to satisfying our most basic needs, but is a “pervasive and normal”⁶ feature of human life concerning our actions toward each other as individuals, groups and institutions on all levels of relations. The existential significance of care is also reflected its history. The notion of care is ancient and can be traced back to the recorded beginnings of human society. Care has been prominent throughout history in the works of the Roman poet Virgil, the German poet Goethe, who seemingly took it from Herder, as well as in the philosophical works of Seneca Protagoras, Plato, Hume, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Gandhi and Heidegger.⁷ Nevertheless, even though the notion of care was of significance to these thinkers it has never influenced or made a noteworthy impact on mainstream philosophy until the 1980s.⁸ First over the last 30 years and with the publishing of Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different

5 Kohlen & Kumbruck, 2008, p. 3.

6 Sluga, 2011, p. 5.

7 Reich, 1995.

8 Reich, 1995, p. 359.

(10)

4

Voice (1982) has the notion of care been introduced into mainstream philosophy through the ethics of care where it has been significant in challenging impersonal, abstract and rationalist systems of thought throughout western history. It is a deeply engaging notion that has the power to connect thinking, feeling and acting in a way traditional rationalist approaches in philosophy lack. In just three short decades care in its ethical form has been developed into a discipline that is changing the way we “evaluate personal relationships, professional conduct, public policy, international relations and global issues”⁹. This is truly remarkable for such a young philosophical enterprise.

The second answer that can be given to why it may be worthwhile to attend to the notion of care, or more bluntly, the question “Why care?” is that some empirical studies provide strong indications that it may work.¹⁰ Employing care as a central guiding feature to our practical dealings with one another both within the private, the public and the political field consistently produces empirically measurable results proving that not only we ourselves, but as well those around us including our family, friends, and human beings we are not even related with, live “happier lives”, and that the caring state that governs us is a better and more just places to live in.

9 Pettersen, 2011, p. 52.

10 Bowman (2013) presents empirical arguments showing impressively how certain kinds of capitalisms, especially capitalisms in states that care for the well being of their citizens, the so called welfare states, such as Sweden, Norway and even Germany (Bowman’s examples) fair constantly better than the USA in terms of the well being of their citizens. Another inspiring example is the IHDI, the income inequality adjusted human development index. While countries such as the USA do quite well on the HDI (the not for income inequality adjusted human development index) ranking 3rd in 2013 and 5th in 2014, they do much worse on the IHDI ranking 16th in 2013 and 28th in 2014 at the lower end of countries submitting these kind of data. The Nordic countries and Germany achieve top rankings in both categories. See as well UNDP, 2014, p. 168.

(11)

5

CHAPTER I - TRACING CARE

Although care approaches toward decision making and interhuman conduct have been associated with women and their reasoning regarding private dilemmas¹¹ since the introduction of the notion of care into ethics by Gilligan’s In a Different Voice¹², Tove Pettersen, among others, has successfully expanded the categorical boundaries and broadened the understanding of care beyond an

exclusively female scope and toward a notion of care being able to guide our human decision making and conduct both within the private and the political domain.

Thus, I am not the first to attempt to rethink or broaden the understanding of the notion of care.

Even though some care thinkers have attempted to argue that care ought to have a universal focus (Leininger)¹³ on a theoretical level including not only human beings, but material objects, plants, animals and the environment (Tronto)¹⁴ the recent mainstream discussion of care is preoccupied with care ethics, predominantly from a female perspective (Gilligan, Noddings, Pettersen). My strategy in this chapter will be to review what we know about care from philosophy by looking at how the understanding of care has been influenced by different thinkers, notions and philosophical concepts throughout history. In order to do this I will discuss three fields that contribute to our contemporary understanding of care. I will trace the etymology and history of care in chapter I, and focus on the discussion of the ethics of care in chapter II. While the history and etymology of care may provide us with a genealogy and an idea of how and why we understand care the way we do, the discussion of care ethics does reflect our contemporary understanding and discourse of care on a practical and theoretical level. Toward the end of chapter I, I will summarize the insights and sketch out what I believe to be important ingredients of care, before I will proceed to the discussion of the significance of the notion of care for ethics in chapter II and mapping out a tentative concept of care for politics, which I will call care politics, in chapter III.

ETYMOLOGY OF CARE: CARE IN LANGUAGE

Care is notoriously hard to define. Kohlen and Kumbruck point out that even in English literature care is used in a wide variety of contexts with no single definition. Care or caring can mean anything

11 Pettersen, 2011, p. 51.

12 Gilligan, 1982.

13 Leininger, 1998.

14 Joan Tronto argues for an extension of care beyond pure human relations. Cf. Kohlen & Kumbruck, 2008, p.

21. Warren Reich (1995) shows in his historical studies that care is a fruitful notion pertaining to all that relates to our human existence.

(12)

6

from „value, virtue, attitude, ideal, behavior, skill and process“¹⁵. They cite Janice Morse and her colleagues who found that there "is no consensus regarding the definitions of caring, the

components of care, or the process of caring.” In her article, Morse argues that “different perspectives appear contradictory” and lack analysis and discussion of “different meanings and perspectives associated with the term caring.” Moreover, from the literature she has examined, “it is difficult to discern the differences between the terms caring, care, and nursing care”¹⁶

This is further complicated by the way we use the word care in everyday language. The etymology of the noun care gives us its Old English roots caru or cearu meaning sorrow, anxiety, grief, but also burdens of mind, i.e., serious mental attention. From Proto-Germanic we get karo for grief or care in the sense of lamenting. However, in Germanic languages such as Dutch or German the word has developed to mean stingy, scanty or frugal, whereas it has transformed from cry to lamentation to grief in English. The meaning of charge, oversight and protection is first attested to the 15th century.

Care as a verb comes from Old English carian, cearian meaning to be anxious, to grieve in the sense of feeling concern or interest. Its Proto-Germanic meaning karo cognates with Old High German charon and Old Saxon karon meaning to lament, to care, or to sorrow. Respectively it cognates with chara and kara meaning sorrow, wail or lament. Kara in Gothic is an expression for sorrow, trouble or care which we still find in the modern use of the German Karfreitag¹⁷ (Good Friday); mourning Friday. It’s Proto-Indo-European root is gar for cry out, call or scream which cognates with the Irish gairm shout, cry and call.¹⁸ The Oxford English Dictionary argues that care’s original meaning is “in no way related to Latin cura”¹⁹ and that its positive connotations, such as having an inclination toward in the sense of having fondness for someone or something, seem to have developed later during the 16th century as opposites to the earlier negative meanings.

Drawing on the history of the origins of the word care, we get its primary meaning to be anxiety, anguish, or mental suffering. This seems to be quite the opposite of how we understand care today.

Nevertheless, we are still be able to find both negative and positive connotations in the modern use of the word, although they tend to fall within quite different categories.

16 Morse et al, 1990, p. 2.

17 The Christian religious holiday mourning the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ.

18 "care" Harper, Douglas R, ‘Online Etymology Dictionary’ ([Lancaster, Pa.]: D. Harper, 2015)

<http://www.etymonline.com>

19 "care, v." OED Online. Oxford University Press, September 2015. Web. 23 September 2015.

(13)

7

Neither in German nor in Norwegian²⁰ are there any terms that capture the rich and full spectrum of the meaning of the word care. It seems as if the vocabulary pertaining to care in these languages is more specialized on the one hand, but captures only certain facets of meaning on the other hand.

The German verb sorgen captures both an emotional aspect as well as care’s meaning referring to an activity where competence or (professional) skill is needed. Sich sorgen um pertains to to care about (emotional aspect), while sorgen für pertains to to care for (competency aspect). So while the German verb may capture the most important aspects of to care, the noun Sorge usually expresses more burdensome aspects of care.²¹ Furthermore, the German umsorgen or Fürsorge or Norwegian omsorg refer to the professional aspect of care such as in health care. We find this in that these languages respectively translate ethics of care as Ethik der Fürsorge or Omsorgsetikk, thereby only capturing certain features of an ethics of care.

In our modern use of the word, care may have both negative and positive connotations. In German notions of care can be found in the positive connotations of tendence, nurturing, fostering, custodial care, parental care, healthcare, medical care, assistance, mindfulness, attentiveness, gratuity, tactfulness, carefulness or caution. The Latin caritas, literally means charity or benevolence for the poor and represents our western Christian dimension of care. Furthermore, word field analyses have shown that Caring pertains to terms of Late Antiquity such as “presence, availability, advocacy, dependability [and] commitment”²².

If one is on the receiving end, care may also be perceived in a negative sense implying surveillance, duty, trouble, effort or burden. Traditionally care has often been linked to a notion of dependence in opposition to autonomy and freedom. For who would want to be in need of care instead of being independent and free?²³ Negative connotations have been traced historically and shown in form and content by comparing caring and curing. Kohlen and Kumbruck argue that there is a factual

historically grown polarity between the male ideas of cure or healing and female ideas of nursing, tending or care. These opposites can be understood as having different hierarchical status. Especially when cure is directly related to social roles of control, power and high societal status that are

traditionally attributed to male responsibilities in society. While care, in contrast, is attributed with female traits of dependence and being subject to directives. This distinction is expressed most

20 The author’s preoccupation with German and Norwegian is explained by the fact that these are the two languages the author is most proficient in.

22 Ibid., p. 3.

23 Cf. Pettersen, 2008, pp. 57-58.

(14)

8

clearly in many health systems where male physicians often have a higher status since they are charged with healing the patient, while women are overrepresented in the field of nursing where they are to take care of the patients until they are healed by a male physician.

In the history of our western thought, we find this distinction represented by two myths. The Christian myth of creation and the myth of cura from Greco-Roman mythology.

HISTORY OF THE NOTION OF CARE

As all our words, ideas, concepts and practices we are using today, care has a history prior to when it was revived by Carol Gilligan’s book In a different Voice (1982) for mainstream philosophy as the ethics of care.²⁴ The virtual lack of attendance by care ethics scholars toward care’s role in

philosophy prior to Gilligan’s book is surprising, because in the history of the notion of care we find a broad range of different illuminating and challenging understandings, meanings as well as

conceptions of care.²⁵ We have already found two conflicting notions of care when we traced its etymology. As mentioned above, care can have a negative connotation pertaining to dependence and lack of freedom on the one hand, and “worries, troubles, or anxieties, as when one says that a person is burdened with cares”²⁶, on the other hand. Nevertheless, care can also have the positive meaning of attentative tending, conscientiousness or commitment towards needs, i.e., to “provide for the welfare of another”²⁷.

Warren Reich points out that these opposite meanings can already be found in Graeco-Roman culture. The Roman poet Virgil placed the ultrices Curae, the “vengeful Cares”, at the gates to the underworld. The vengeful Cares personified the burdensome kind of care that is dragging humans down. In contrast to this heavy weighing and down pulling force of care, the stoic thinker Seneca saw care as “the power in humans that lifts them up and places them on a level with God.”²⁸ For him care meant concern or solicitude with strong “connotations of attentiveness, conscientiousness, and

24 Since a full investigation into the history of the notion of care would go beyond the scope of this thesis we will focus on some representative pieces that will further clarify the various notions and at times conflicting character of care.

25 Reich, 1995, p. 319.

26 Ibid., p. 349.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., p. 350.

(15)

9

devotion”²⁹. Seneca argued that while the good is perfected in God due to his nature, it can only be perfected in humans by care or cura. Thus, care, to Seneca, is the key to realizing our full human potential, to “becoming truly human”. Reich notes that this existential understanding of care as key element to our humanity as well as the dual opposites of care as solicitude and care as burden have shaped our western thinking of care and can be found in the myth of Cura (or Care) that belongs to Roman mythology.³⁰

Cura was a Roman deity whose name can mean both care and concern in Latin. We can find a translation of the myth in Heidegger’s History of The Concept of Time:

"Once when 'Care' [the Latin reads Cura] was crossing a river, she saw some clay. Thoughtfully, she took up a piece and began to shape it. While she was meditating on what she had made, Jupiter came by. 'Care' asked him to give it spirit, and this he gladly granted. But when she wanted her name to be bestowed upon it, he forbade this, and demanded that it be given his name instead. As they were arguing, Earth [Terra] arose and requested that her name be conferred on the creature, since she had given it a part of her body. They asked Saturn to be the judge, and he made the following seemingly just decision: "Since, Jupiter, gave it spirit, you shall have that spirit at its death. Since you, Earth, gave it the gift of a body, you shall receive its body. But since 'Care' first shaped this creature, she shall possess it as long as it lives. But since there is a dispute among you about its name, let it be called 'homo,' for it is made of humus (earth)."³¹

While the notion of human beings as being entities born of two worlds, the spiritual (reason) and the earthly or empirical world, is already present in this myth it is not the unification of both or the dominance of one over the other that are essential for living a human life. Rather, they provide ramifications, a point of departure (origins), stages of transition (life as process), and destination (destiny). To truly live a human life is to give oneself to care. Reich argues that this claim should be important to the care philosopher because it provides a different myth of origins. Here, Reich points to Judith Shklar who argues that myths of origins have been “a typical form of questioning and condemning the established order, divine and human, ethical and political”³² and “to establish radical moral claims about power and the social order”³³. Several prominent political and moral philosophies, Reich argues, are based on myths of origins that emphasize adversarial struggles as the starting point for human societies; Light vs dark (cosmogenic myth), good vs evil (Christianity),

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Heidegger, 1985, pp. 302-3.

32 Shklar, 1972, p. 130.

33 Reich, 1995, p. 350. See as well Shklar, 1972, p. 131ff.

(16)

10

Apollonian vs Dionysian (Nietzsche), reason vs inclination (Plato, Kant). In contrast to these myths, the myth of Cura provides a different starting point for human society and what it means to be a human being.

On the one hand, the myth may be interpreted in a dialectic way as the genuine struggle between two forces essential to human life. An earthly or bodily element that pulls us down to the ground - the concern or worry for our physical bodies - and a “spirit-element” that pulls upward to the heavenly or divine - the moral life or living a good life. On the other hand, it is the uplifting sense of care as attentive solicitude that dominates the myth of Cura. It is a powerful allegory emphasizing that the most basic fact about human life is that humans are cared for and possess the capacity to care. Moreover, Reich argues that the myth provides a unique reinterpretation of the notion of power because the myth paints the picture that only those who are cared for from birth will

“develop the nurturing power to care for self and others.”³⁴ Thus, care binds human beings together and becomes the glue of society; a guiding principle of how we are to live together and an indication of care’s importance for moral philosophy and politics.

In the myth of Cura, the first human being is called homo, or human, “for it is made from humus (earth)”³⁵. Had it been named after the most powerful gods it would have been a symbol of the human being, being dominated by such power. Thus, the myth suggests that solicitous care may protect humans from oppression and manipulation by an enslaving power. It is care that brings the first human into existence. Care is inherent in creation, existence and even death; it gives, attends to and sustains the human life, and eases its passing away. In this way, the myth of Cura provides an account of “how care is central to what it means to be human and to live out a human life”³⁶. Moreover, it also enables us to rethink the role and importance of care in human life by providing a genealogy of care. Therefore, care, Reich argues, provides us with an alternative way to interpret and a tool to understand the meaning of human experiences regarding the basic characteristics of human life and what it means to be human.³⁷

34 Reich, 1995, p. 350. Own emphasis.

35 Heidegger, 1985, p. 303.

36 Reich, 1995, p. 350.

37 Ibid.

(17)

11

INFLUENCE OF THE MYTH OF CURA

Reich shows that the myth of Cura is not only important as a narrative that has influenced poets, writers, artists and philosophers of all centuries, but that it has also been embedded in practices such as the cura animarum. Cura animarum, or the care of the souls, refers to the Christian tradition of caring for spiritually, mentally or physically troubled persons and retains many of the above sketched out features of true solicitous care.³⁸

In the past, the notion of care has appeared in the spotlight on different stages throughout history.

The German poet Goethe used the major themes from a poem titled The Child of Care, which he took from his teacher Herder, to create the dramatic poem Faust, his own masterpiece. In Faust, Goethe portrays both the heavy and dark sides of burdensome care, as well as care’s positive and uplifting function. The narrative demonstrates how terrible internal and external harm can be the result of selfish care for one’s own goals while ignoring and shutting out “a sometimes worrisome and painful concern for people and institutions”³⁹. The chief message of the poem is that care should not be avoided in living a human life. Rather, the dark and destructive side of care must be

converted into a “positive, solicitous concern for people and institutions.”⁴⁰ For Goethe, this striving is essential to the pursuit of living a truly human life. It relates to the human condition in a

fundamental way, for conscientious and devoted care may offer moral salvation, as it did for Goethe’s main protagonist Dr. Faust. In Faust, Goethe does not merely develop a notion of private care as “interpersonal devotion”, but sketches out what care can mean in a political context, thus being of interest to political philosophy. At the end of the poem and his life Dr. Faust has become a rich man and powerful ruler whose main concern becomes whether he will be able to “show

solicitous care as a ruler”⁴¹. We can also find the same concern in Plato’s dialogue Statesman, where he discusses how a ruler should care for the community. I will come back to the discussion of Plato’s notion of care in a political setting in chapter III.

38 An elaboration of the care of the souls tradition within Christianity would go beyond the scope of this thesis.

For a discussion see Reich, 1995, pp. 350-352.

39 Reich, 1995, p. 352.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

(18)

12

EXISTENTIAL CARE: TO CARE IS TO BE HUMAN

The notion of care can also be traced historically in the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. For Kierkegaard, Reich explains, care is the key to understanding and to living an

authentic human life thus offering “creative philosophical explanations”⁴² of themes from both the myth of Cura and Goethe’s Faust. Furthermore, Reich argues that Kierkegaard influenced existential thinking profoundly in that his notion of the concerned thinker “became the central theme of existentialist philosophy and theology”⁴³.

Interest, concern or care are important ingredients to Kierkegaard’s notion of consciousness. He uses the notion of consciousness to contrast what he calls disinterested reflection. Such reflection has “no concern with, or interest in, the knower”⁴⁴, but is merely a disinterested process of

categorization of objects and “classifying things in opposition to each other”⁴⁵. Consciousness on the other hand is concerned with contradictions, conflict and the “collision of opposites” that one may discover in reflection. In contrast to disinterested reflection, care for the knowing human being is inherent in consciousness. It is through concern or care that the naked objects of disinterested reflection are brought into “a real relationship with the knowing subject”⁴⁶. The care for truth, that is, a concerned relationship to truth, is the foundation of Kierkegaard’s epistemology according to Reich. Kierkegaard deems it to be morally wrong, “a refuge from the chaos and pain of life”, amounting to “cowardice and escapism” to “adopt the stance of the impersonally knowing subject rather than that of the concerned human being”⁴⁷.

Consequently, it is through care human beings exercise both commitment and freedom for it is in the practice of care individuals make a concerned choice. Thus, for Kierkegaard it, is only through care or concern that action is possible. Such care is found in the individual for it is “as soon as I have to act, interest and concern is laid upon me, because I take responsibility on myself … “⁴⁸ In other words, ethics without a someone caring for its objective, i.e., ethics without a concerned human being interested in how to live his or her own life, is not possible. Reason may play an important role

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Kierkegaard, 1958, p.150.

45 Reich, 1995, p. 353.

46 Ibid.

47 Ibid.

48 Kierkegaard, 1958, pp. 116-117; Reich, 1995, p. 353.

(19)

13

in analyzing rules and deducing norms that help us guide our decisions in order to live a moral life, but any ethics, any purposeful action, always starts by an act of care by a self-reflected and concerned human being. Hence, for Kierkegaard, care is the foundation of all ethics. An ethics at whose root stands the caring and concerned human being as situated, always within relations to the world and to others, always in a state of flux and process of becoming, caught in the contradictions from reflection, concerned with his or her integrity that can only be shaped through decision and action,⁴⁹ but with absolutely no security to know any ultimate justification or final outcome of his or her decisions and actions.

Kierkegaard does not only discusses the existential and ethical dimensions of care, but creates a connection between positive and negative care by turning the experience of being burdened with cares into reasons not only for caring for oneself, but as well “seeking the care of others.”⁵⁰ These thoughts, according to Reich, fall within the care of the souls literature because humans, even without having any other persons to care for them, will always find consolation in that they are still cared for by a caring God. Furthermore, the capacity of humans to care for material things and being weighed down by them seems to have a common element with the capacity to care for others and being cared for. There is always the danger that it can turn out to be a negative and hindering care.

The need for security, our fears for our material and mental well being now and in the future, can lead to a burdensome care that will ultimately trap us in a struggle for absolute self-sufficiency. A struggle that will wear us out, weigh us down and that we are bound to lose if we get trapped in a

“care-ridden state of mind”⁵¹. A state in which we are giving into an exaggerated habit of worrying too much about an uncertain future. On the other hand, Kierkegaard finds in it a potential to overcome the worrisome care for ourselves and to find consolation in the care of others, be it the human or spiritual other in the form of God. Thus, in worrisome care one can find a sign that human beings are able to care and being cared for in general. This care may be for other human beings, material things or even ourselves. Let us keep this capacity for care in mind for now. I will come back to it in chapter II.

Kierkegaard is useful for thinking on care in yet another way, for he elaborates also on a special kind of anxious care, a care that is so strong that it has the power to overwhelm the individual human being with an existential Angst. It arises when a potentially deadly sickness reaches its decisive point.

49 Cf. Reich, 1995, p. 353.

50 Ibid., p. 353, Here Reich mainly refers to Kierkegaard (1940).

51 Ibid.

(20)

14

The point at which the question arises whether the sick person is “confronting life renewing itself or the looming decay of death”⁵². The anxiety or fear of death inherent in the climax of the disease can move the sick person toward reducing his or her resistance against accepting the care of others for the alternative would be a forlorn and terrifying death. It is often in the experience of imminent death, be it by disease or other catastrophic life events such as war or natural disaster, that move us to rethinking how we want to live our life and that may even provide strong enough motivation to take action on such reflection.

Finally yet importantly, Reich shows that Kierkegaard was very clear that caring for someone else “is not always a gentle art”⁵³. The care of a doctor for the health of a patient, for example, may require the physician to demand the patient to take responsibility for his or her own health by exercising regularly or going on a special diet. These, sometimes quite authoritative demands are nevertheless an expression of care and concern for the caree⁵⁴ or in this case for the sick patient.

Another influential existential thinker contributing to our understanding of care is Martin Heidegger who actively discusses and reinterprets the myth of Cura as an alternative version of the Christian creation myth. According to Reich, Heidegger even cites the myth of Cura as ”primordial

justification”⁵⁵ or naive interpretation of his philosophical conception of Dasein, i.e., he views care as the fundamental way of being human. In the myth of Cura the human being is created through Cura and the female virtue of care, while in the Christian myth of creation the woman is created second and from a rip of the man. Furthermore, Heidegger notes, the “double sense of cura” in the myth of Cura, which “refers to care for something as concern, absorption in the world, but also care in the sense of devotion."⁵⁶ In this reading, it is the female notion of care that is primordial to our human existence and not the male as in the Christian creation myth. Cura or Care is life giving, life sustaining and promoting the flourishing of human life through the primacy of care. In other words, I read Heidegger as saying that we can only live authentic human lives if we give ourselves to care. Care is that which provides the basic “structures” for human life and what makes our human being-in-the- world possible.⁵⁷

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 A caree is a person cared for, as opposed to the carer who is the one that cares.

55 Reich, 1995, p. 354.

56 Heidegger, 1985, p. 303.

57 Cf. Ibid.

(21)

15

INFLUENCE OF EXISTENTIAL CARE

This notion of existential care has also influenced thinkers in other disciplines. In psychology Rollo May made Heidegger’s views “more accessible to the average reader by pointing out their

psychological and moral implications”⁵⁸. May regarded care as the capacity to feel that something matters and that this capacity for care “is born in the same act as the infant”⁵⁹. For May believed that if human beings do not experience care in the earliest stages of their development they would not develop a capacity for care during later stages of life, and thus not become caring human beings.

Only if our biological and psychological needs are addressed when we are infants may we fully develop the capacity to feel that something matters and to become interested and devoted human beings. It is again a notion that is already present in the myth of cura as well as Kierkegaard’s discussion of care.⁶⁰ Care is what makes us human. It is, for May, as it was for Heidegger, the “basic constitutive phenomenon of human existence”⁶¹. If we lose or do not develop care in our relations, we lose what it is to be human.

Furthermore, for May, care or caring includes an element of shepherding or tending and solicitude toward the welfare of both my own self and others. Remember, that this was the chief concern of the politician Dr. Faust had become at the end of Goethe’s masterpiece. May argues that,

evolutionarily speaking, care may be nothing more than a palliative reaction to the biological sensation of pain.⁶² If we are not careful, we will hurt or injure ourselves. Thus, the care for one’s own well being must biologically and psychologically precede the care for others. However, even though care begins with one’s personal experience of pain, it enables us to recognize in ourselves the pain of others and others’ capacity to feel pain as we do.⁶³

There may even be a biological-psychological explanation for the human capacity to feel the pain of others as their own. In Psychology, mirror neurons have been observed in animals, primates and indirectly in human brain activity. They are triggered both when one acts and observes the same action performed by another. The theory argues that mirror neurons, mirror the behavior of the one

58 Ibid., p. 355.

59 Ibid.

60 See discussion on pp. 8-9.

61 May, 1969, p. 290; Reich, 1995, p. 355.

62 May, 1969, p. 289; Reich, 1995, p. 355.

63 Tove Pettersen sees the cause for the universality of care in a similar line of argument; That care is based on the capacity to participate in others feelings and thus activates shared human experiences such as pain, suffering, as well as the relief from such experiences by care. See e.g. Pettersen, 2008, pp. 55-57 & Pettersen, 2011, p. 58.

(22)

16

acting in the observer, inducing in him or her the same state of mind, emotions and feelings as in the observed. Thus, the observer is in an emotional and mental state as though he or she would feel pain or act him or herself. It is believed that mirror neuron systems in the human brain play an important part to which extent someone is capable of showing empathy.⁶⁴

It is the capacity to reflectively experience pain that lets us connect to other human beings on the basis of care (pain alleviation) and that lets us perceive others as belonging to the same community of human beings. The identification of a common humanity from our capacity to care is, to both May and Heidegger, the foundation of any ethics. Only if I do care, will I become conscious of the

suffering of others including myself. I will be concerned for the well being, just and fair treatment, or moral status only of that which I care about. If May and Heidegger are right, then care is the precondition for any moral interest. It comes as no surprise then that both thinkers view moral conscience as the recognition of “the call of care".⁶⁵ Thus, Reich points out, that for both of them morality has its psychological roots in care, that is, “in the capacities of the human being to transcend the concrete situation of the immediate self-oriented desire,” and to decide and act beneficial “in terms of the welfare of the persons and groups upon whom his own fulfillment intimately depends”⁶⁶.

As I come to discuss in chapter II, this way of identifying ourselves with other human beings has the power to overcome dual ways of thinking about morality in terms of good/evil, right/wrong, or just/unjust. It dissipates conflict-furthering distinctions between I/you, we/they or friend/enemy and dissolves the conflict between the traditional notion of altruism vs egoism that is essential to the discussion of mature care later in chapter II. For the notion of mature care construed in the way Tove Pettersen sees it overcomes these binary distinctions.⁶⁷

The understanding of care as being at the roots of ethics may already now point us to some of its political implications. For if, care is truly essential to living a human life then it must be preserved and furthered continuously over and across generations. Care, thus, becomes a generational task. If May is right that the capacity to care is developed in the child by its parents taking care of the child it is always the preceding generation that lays the ground for the next generation. Only if we care for our children will they develop the capacity to care for their own children and so on. That thought is

64 Cf. Keysers, 2011.

65 May, 1969, p. 290; Reich, 1995, p. 355.

66 May, 1969, p. 268; Reich, 1995, p. 355.

67 See my discussion on p. 49ff in chapter II.

(23)

17

the reason why, according to Reich, Erik Erikson has argued that taking care of future generations should be institutionalized and given continuity, not only in private institutions such as the family, but in “extended households and divided labor”⁶⁸, and ,we can add, other public and state

institutions such as kindergartens, schools and universities. For Erikson, caring is “the generational task of cultivation strength in the next generation”⁶⁹.

Thus, Reich interprets Erikson to say that the task to care for the next generation is best achieved by political means because it is political communities including “social and political leadership”⁷⁰ that have to organize the continuity of care. Consequently, care widens the focus of a strictly ethical understanding of care for it is not only the capacity to care for other human beings, for my children, my parents or my partner, that is important, but also the capacity to care for that, which makes these relations possible. To realize the shared responsibility of caring for this planet and all life on it as creatures of this world. If, for example, I do not care about the well being of the planet I can hardly claim to care about the livelihood of human communities. Because by destroying the livability of the planet I make human and other life impossible. If I do not care about a healthy environment that makes human life possible, I cannot claim to care about other human beings for I accept that they may not have the chance of living a healthy life. If I do not care about the protection of our natural environment, that includes plants, microorganisms, animals and their habitat, I will not care about the continued existence of the human race. For by destroying them I accept that the

necessary conditions for human existence will be destroyed, too. Thus, if I do not care about any of these things, I can hardly claim to care for myself, that is, for my own existence and living well.

Thinking of care in such a way gives us a clear understanding of its reflective power. For by caring for the other, be it human beings, animals, plants or inanimate objects (that which makes animate life possible), I always care for myself and my own existence at the same time. And vice versa, if I care about my own well being and livelihood I will realize that these depend on the favorable conditions created by a larger framework, i.e., the biological and humanly created structures that define my life in a political community, and thus I will realize that these structures need attention and care so that I can participate in shaping them in favorable ways.

Nevertheless, philosophically this insight presents us with a challenge many care approaches are facing. Essentially, it says that through care, we become more caring, or in other words, that if we would all care more we would live in a more caring society. The biggest problem with this argument,

68 Reich, 1995, p. 356.

69 Erikson, 1982, pp. 55, 67-68; Reich, 1995, p. 355.

70 Reich, 1995, p. 356.

(24)

18

in addition to being logically problematic, is that it does not provide an account of how we can become more caring.⁷¹ I see two strategies to address this challenge. The first, is to comprehend care as a pedagogical concept and educational project. That care is always in need of further caring and that we have to learn to care in an adequate way.⁷² The second is to address the problem of the how from the perspective of Erikson's approach. Erikson’s framework of care is based on a very Nietzschean idea, the idea of preservation and enhancement, or flourishment, of the species.⁷³ According to Reich, Erikson argues that it is our task to strengthen and develop the capacity to care in the next generation.⁷⁴ The development of this capacity to care is characterized by a dialectic process of negative and positive aspects of development, that of generativity and rejectivity. These two opposing momenta of self-absorption vs generativity, that is, the conflict between self-interest and the extent to which we are concerned with and respond to the next generation, create a continual process of development and change. This process will ideally lead to the emergence of individual growth and a strong capacity to care through an “active adaptation that requires that one changes the environment, including social [norms] and institutions, while making selective use of its opportunities.”⁷⁵

On the one hand, generativity is, for Erikson, a sympathic strength that is characterized by one's willingness to include others in one’s generative concerns. On the other hand, rejectivity is the antipathic inclination not to embrace others in one’s own generative concern. Rejectivity, for

71 Engster, 2004, p. 118.

72 See my discussion of the pedagogical core of care in chapter III on p. 92f.

73 Nietzsche, in my opinion, is often misconstrued as putting the enhancement of one species as the highest good. His Übermensch is often wrongly presented as an enhanced and thus better human being. Although a thorough discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy goes beyond the scope of this thesis, I want to point out that this is a naive reading of Nietzsche for he states clearly that it is the preservation and enhancement of the species that is our task (Nietzsche, 1968, p. 380). This process is driven by the Will to Power, which if we read Nietzsche from a monist point of view may be characterized as a single animating principle, that lets us overcome our current state of existence by propelling us toward a progressive moral development. Thus, the Will to Power is Nietzsche’s way of overcoming a binary mode of understanding traditional ethics. Even though Nietzsche believes that moral and human development can only be achieved by the destruction and re- creation of our highest moral values (Nihilism) and thus of our current state of existence it is at precisely this point that the notion of care may offer an alternative understanding of how we can preserve and enhance humanity. It is not through the Will to Power, but through care and care structures that we can preserve, strengthen and develop the capacity for care in the next generation.

74 Reich, 1995, pp. 355-356.

75 Ibid., p. 356.

(25)

19

Erikson, simply expresses that “one does not care to care for”⁷⁶ others and that one may even hold hostile attitudes toward them.

Since human beings are finite entities with a limited capacity to care, care will always be selective and thus lead to a certain amount of rejectivity. Erikson argues that it is through “ethics, law and insight”, and we may add through politics, that we have to determine the allowable amount of rejectivity. While it is perfectly alright in most western countries to freely express one’s thoughts and opinion in principle, the freedom of expression is usually limited by safeguards that are supposed to hinder violent or destructive effects to society, such as the principle of hate speech.⁷⁷ Thus,

according to Reich, Erikson believes that "religious and ideological belief systems must continue to advocate a more universal principle of care for specified wider units of communities"⁷⁸ if we are to reduce rejectivity among people as well as peoples. This can happen in “small but significant [caring]

gestures” of everyday life or express itself in “global struggles against uncaring attitudes”⁷⁹ that have destructive effects on the development of communities. On this account, it would be the task of politics to find out how this process can best be facilitated by political means, for example, by creating societal structures and institution that promote care both domestically as well as globally.

The idea that to care for another is to facilitate growth and flourishing goes all the way back to the myth of Cura and has been picked up by thinkers such as Nietzsche and Erikson. It is also a

prominent notion in the philosophy of Milton Mayeroff who holds that to care is “to help the other grow, whether the other is a person, an idea, an ideal, a work of art, or a community”⁸⁰. By helping others grow, one enters into a mutual relation because the caring action is beneficial to both.

A good example for such a mutual relation is the relation between a parent and the child. While the caring parent would want the child to develop and grow in a certain way, for example, to become a good piano player, a good scientist, an excellent doctor or simply a good human being, this is only

76 Erikson, 1982, p. 68; Reich, 1995, p. 356.

77 For example, if one disagrees with the politics of the ruling party, one may freely express one’s discontent, one may assemble and demonstrate, but one may not publicly demand the execution of leading politicians based on holding different political opinions. Various political communities may find their own distinct interpretations of where to draw the line. While it may be drawn with regard to hate speech in some

countries, it may be considered illegal only when promoting destructive action in other political communities.

To determine where to draw such lines is up to politics. For an elusive case about German demonstrators demanding the hanging of chancellor Angela Merkel and vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel during a

demonstration see Tretbar, 2015.

78 Erikson, 1982, p. 69; Reich, 1995, p. 356. Own emphasis.

79 Reich, 1995, p. 356.

80 Ibid.

(26)

20

possible when the parent respects the child to grow in her or his own way, too. Too much authority in telling the child what to do and how to achieve it, mainly for the sake of the parents, will most likely lead to passive dependence or rebellion. Thus, caring in this instance will require a certain degree of trusting the caree. The relationship is mutual beneficial because the parents provide the child with the necessary means to develop and flourish, while at the same time the positive development of the child progressively effects the well being of the parent. To learn to care for someone or something other than oneself is thus an integral part of helping other persons to flourish.

Anyhow, flourishment or human growth should not be understood as a “series of goal-oriented services”⁸¹ or static aims that are to be achieved. Rather, Mayeroff sees caring first and foremost as a process. If, for example, a parent regards the child becoming a successful doctor as a mere means to a future service, that of securing the parent’s own need for support when getting old, the parent does not take the process of the development of the child serious in its own right. To support someone’s development and flourishment for its own sake is an important ingredient to caring without which it becomes impossible to care. Being cared for in such a way will not only further trust in the caree as well as the carer, but lead to moral development. Since one is trusted not to merely conform to established norms, but to make one’s own decisions, based on self-chosen and in experience grounded ideas and values, such care will ultimately lead to a higher degree of moral autonomy and self-determination.

Furthermore, Mayeroff thinks, that it will support the development of responsiveness in the caree as well as in the carer. It is this element of responsiveness that is of special interest to ethical and political dimensions of care, because the responsibility that arises from the attentive devotion to one’s own children, it can be argued, is different in kind from the obligations or duties derived from external norms or principles. While the care for my own children comes from devotion, relational commitments and concern for the well being of myself as well as for my child, to care for other persons outside of my family or political community usually derives from external sources such as customs, national and international law or principles of justice and equality. Such external

motivation can be tricky simply because, for one, it may seem too far removed from everyday life to bear significance on how I live my life and two, one would still have to explain why one should follow such abstract principles and how these principles motivate the (moral) agent to act on them.

However, caring engages an agent not only on an abstract and intellectual, but as well on an emotive

81 Ibid.

(27)

21

level, thus, providing stronger motivation to care based action.⁸² Caring, thus, has the power to order “other values and activities of life around itself, resulting in an integration of the self with the surrounding world.”⁸³ Hence, care, for Mayeroff, plays a fundamental role to our human condition.

To be cared for and feel that we are trusted, truly loved and needed by another corresponds to the feeling that life has meaning.⁸⁴

INGREDIENTS OF CARE

Reich, in his investigation into the history of care, cites several concepts that have parallels to the notion of care and that have been of importance to several philosophers and their thoughts on morality. Sympathy, empathy and compassion are all important to the notion of care and have achieved a moral significance of their own in the works of David Hume, Arthur Schopenhauer, Adam Smith, Max Scheler (sympathy/empathy), and Joseph Butler (compassion). Sympathy as the capacity that lets us identify with how someone feels does indeed bear some resemblance with elements of care. It is a prominent feature of care for both May and Mayeroff. Nevertheless, care is a much richer notion having both “a deeper role in human life,” being “broader than sympathy in its tasks,”

and entailing “a more committed role with other people and projects.”⁸⁵

Attention is another important ingredient in the notion of care. It can be argued, that there is no care without attention. Only if we pay attention to someone or something can we be said to care for that person or thing. In other words, concerned or solicitous attention is a precondition for care, whereas care cannot be reduced to mere interest and attention, because it would lack the element of me acting on that interest. It is precisely the strength of care that it provides motivation on an emotive rather than a purely abstract level by linking feelings and emotions with a mental state to explain how and why one can decide to act. To care about a refugee is to pay attention both to the situation that person is in, his or her needs as well as my own, and how to care in the right way. The French philosopher Simone Weil argued for attention to be “the central image for ethics”⁸⁶. It is an effort we have to prioritize often at the cost of suspending our own thought or action in order to care for someone or something. For Weil, attention as an effort of caring contemplation is the

82 This is a hypothesis that can be tested empirically.

83 Ibid., p. 357.

84 Ibid.

85 Ibid.

86 Ibid., p. 358.

(28)

22

condition for any moral undertaking and can give us an alternative approach to moral principles such as equality and justice. According to Weil, equality is not an abstract principle or concept from which action is to be deduced. Rather, it is a certain way of looking at, i.e., giving a certain kind of attention to others and ourselves.⁸⁷

This line of thought reminds of the discussion that care is at the roots of questions such as what it means to live a human life and how to live together in this world. Justice, fairness and equality are truly important principles, but they are of merely theoretical and academic interest and useless for politics if we do not care. I will only be concerned with a fair and just treatment of others if I acknowledge them having the same rights as I do on a practical level. I will care to help refugees fleeing war or disaster and coming to my country only if I care about their right to life as well as their existential experiences stemming from concrete and life-threatening circumstances. It is not enough to acknowledge their basic human rights on an abstract and from action detached level. Rather, it is my capacity to care that will ultimately move me to action by making me realize that other such as refugees are human beings just like me, trying to avoid pain, suffering , insecurity and death.

I do not want to argue that we can do without principles such as justice, fairness and equality. They are indeed important guiding principles and studying them has high educational value. So these principles play indeed a major role, but they serve only a theoretical function as long as they are not applied to our private and political actions. And this simply presupposes that I do care.

In addition to the notions of sympathy-empathy and attention, I will argue that a third main ingredient to care is the idea of vulnerability. Most ethical approaches presuppose the notion of a strong self or strong and autonomous agent. A concept of the person as being able to decide his or her own fate and to determine his or her own actions. This, although an ideal we may strive for, is a somewhat problematic presupposition. For it seems as if a strong self cannot simply be

presupposed, but must be developed. Thus, it is important to pay attention to how a strong and self- sufficient self may be developed, as well as we have to make space for the notion of a vulnerable and weak self⁸⁸.

87 Ibid.

88 Cf, Rößler, 2011.

From Care Ethics to Care Politics. Toward a Political Notion of Care